Hartford Sex Slave Ring Focus Of Investigation Discovery TV Show

"FBI: Criminal Pursuit," a Wednesday-night show on the cable station Investigation Discovery, devotes its episode this week to a Hartford sex-slave ring whose leaders were convicted in 2007 of forcing girls as young as 14 to turn tricks.

The episode "All-American Sex Slaves," part-news report and part-dramatic re-enactment, tells the story of two pimps, Brian Forbes and Dennis "Rahmyti" Paris, and two girls, one from New Hampshire and one from Vermont, who were enslaved by Forbes and Paris and then escaped and testified against them. Forbes and Paris are both now serving time in prison.

The girls in the show are called Gwen and Alicia, which were the pseudonyms used to tell their stories in a May 24, 2011 Vanity Fair story about the prostitution ring.

Local law enforcement personnel seen in the show include Hartford Police Det. Deborah Scates, Windsor Police, Sgt. Chris McKee, Christine Grispino, special agent in the FBI's New Haven division, and Douglas Werth, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service, as well as Amy Fine Collins, who wrote the story in Vanity Fair.

Scates is at the center of the show, as she was the leading officer to discover the girls, question them, determine the case was legit and assemble the team to build up evidence against, arrest and prosecute Forbes and Paris.

The narrative describes how Scates encountered a girl who had been arrested in a prostitution sting on Wethersfield Avenue, who told her a story "so horrific it almost doesn't seem plausible," that she had been kidnapped, raped, turned into a heroin addict and forced into prostitution.

The girl, "Gwen," told Scates how several months before, she had been recruited into a life of sex slavery by her aunt, who introduced her to Forbes, whose legitimate cover was as a bail bondsman. Forbes pretended to fall in love with "Gwen" and asked her to move in with him, but when she arrived at his apartment, he introduced his girlfriend and told "Gwen" why she was really there. He raped her, beat her, invited his friends to gang-rape her and then shot her up with heroin. The next day, he started selling her.

After a few weeks locked in a room and forced to turn whatever tricks Forbes sent in there, Forbes forced her to recruit another young, blond friend, because Caucasian blonds ("snow bunnies") are the most lucrative prostitutes on the streets. She reluctantly recruited a friend, "Alicia," because Forbes threatened to go after "Gwen's" little sister if she didn't.

The two women endured four months of slavery, being forced to service several men every day. If they refused, their daily heroin supply was cut off. Eventually Forbes sold the two women to Paris for $1,200 as a package deal. The women thought nobody could be worse than Forbes, but they were wrong, and their life became progressively more terrifying until both were arrested for different reasons, "Gwen" for prostitution, "Alicia" for shoplifting.

The arrests were their salvation. They both met Scates, and their stories launched the investigation into Forbes and Paris.

A monthslong investigation resulted in Paris and Forbes and their associates being indicted on 56 counts of sex trafficking, fraud, coercion and other charges, involving their victimization of "Gwen," "Alicia" and several underage girls. Forbes pleaded guilty and got 13 years. Paris pleaded not guilty, was tried and convicted and got 30 years. Both had to pay restitution to their victims.

The show gives those details and more, with actors portraying Paris, Forbes, "Gwen," "Alicia" and Scates.

The show is full of street scenes of Hartford and its surrounding towns, with hotel names blurred out.

THE "ALL AMERICAN SEX SLAVES" EPISODE OF "FBI: CRIMINAL PURSUIT"will be on Investigation Discovery on Wednesday, May 16, at 10 p.m. To find Investigation Discovery on your TV dial, visit http://investigation.discovery.com/channel-finder/ or check the channel guide on your TV.